Don’t you love summer? The sun, the sand, and oh…the beach reads!
Okay, so some of us–me included–do not currently live near a beach. Still, the idea of long stretches of time curled up beneath a beach umbrella (or some other spot of blissful solitude) with nothing to do but read is so very wonderful, isn’t it? Even if none of the above scenarios are plausible in your world, finding a summer beach read is!
While my criteria for a summer beach read does not require that the book actually be set in a beach town, I do love reading about these 
places. As I mentioned, I am currently landlocked due to love, a story for another day (or another book!), but during my childhood and most of my adult years I lived in close proximity to the Texas Gulf Coast. Stories of life in coastal towns are not only part of my past, but they are also part of the novels that fill my bookshelf.
Because I love to read about these locations, I decided to create a series of stories set at the beach–Vine Beach, to be precise–so I could also write about them. Working on all three of my Vine Beach books, collected under the Love Inspired series Second Time Around, has been so much fun! Plotting, planning and finally writing about a fictional Texas Gulf Coast town nestled between a lighthouse and nearby Galveston sent me back to my days of collecting shells at McFaddin Beach with my dad, of watching fog roll from the porch of our now-gone (thanks to Hurricane Ike) beach cabin on Crystal Beach, and of all those rides across the Galveston Ferry from Port Bolivar to my favorite island.
This trio of beach reads, starting with Daddy’s Little Matchmakers (January 2012) and then continuing with Her Holiday Fireman (November 2013), concludes with Their Unexpecte
d Love (June 2014). Each story features not only a Vine Beach, Texas setting, but also a widowed hero who finds love in the most unexpected way.
While I love all the books in this series, this story of high school opposites who finally attract ten years later is one I am so very glad I get to tell. Watching Logan (whose name was borrowed from my bonus son Logan Turner) and Pippa fall in love was like rewriting that chapter back in high school where the invisible girl finally gets noticed by the cool guy whose locker is under hers. Oh but now Logan isn’t dodging Pippa’s skateboard as it falls out of her locker anymore. Instead he’s dodging love. At the beach. Oh, yes definitely at the beach.
Have I mentioned how much I love books set at the beach? But I digress. Do you love beach reads as much as I do? Tell me your favorites so I can add them to my growing list of summer reading!
Bestselling author Kathleen Y’Barbo is a multiple Carol Award and RITA nominee of fifty novels with almost two million copies of her books in print in the US and abroad. A tenth-generation Texan and certified family law paralegal, she has been nominated for a Career Achievement Award as well a Reader’s Choice Award and several Top Picks by Romantic Times magazine. A member of Romance Writers of America, American Christian Fiction Writers, and a former member of the Texas Bar Association Paralegal Division, she is currently a proud military wife and an expatriate Texan cheering on her beloved Texas Aggies from north of the Red River. To find out more about Kathleen or connect with her through social media, check out her website at www.kathleenybarbo.com.
I have 3 new books to put on my list now! i’m more of a swinging in the hammock in the mountainy shade girl myself (I sunburn too easily to enjoy the beach. Plus all that sand…yuk.) But I like to read about the beach – and I love the carefree feeling that summer beach reads embody.
On my own summer pile are Wild Mint Tea (by our own Valerie Comer) and Raptor 6 by Ronie Kendig. I had more, but I already zoomed through them – so I need a trip to the bookstore in there too!
I love the beach, and it’s been way too long since I’ve visited my favorite one–Sanibel Island. I love your covers–so serene. Makes me want to curl up in a hammock with the ocean breezes refreshing my face as I read.
Right now I’m reading Melissa Tagg’s Here to Stay, Becky Wade’s Meant to be Mine and Hillary Manton Lodge’s A Table by the Window.
Enjoy Wild Mint Tea! :D
I love your story premise, Kathleen! Guess that just got added to MY summer beach read list! Try Catching Serenity by our own JoAnn Durgin for a good beachside tale as well.
Me, I’m taking a Kindle full of books TO THE BEACH next week. In this case, it’s a far northern island, so I’m not expecting to laze in the sun and get a tan, but I’ll enjoy it just the same.
You’ll love Wild Mint Tea! Enjoy that hammock!
A Table by the Window is one my the best books I’ve read in a LONG time. Hillary will tell you I’ve been pestering her to write the second book in the series faster!
I will! And a beach is a beach no matter the temperature! Enjoy!
Oh, my, how I miss the beach! We spent 7 years in Southern California–an hour and a half from the beach and an hour from the mountains. We spent many weekends in Laguna, San Diego, and Newport, and some of my hubby and my most romantic day get-aways! Now we’re smack dab in the middle of the United States, about as far from the beach as one can get.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t slip out to the beach once in a while, thanks to storyworld! :)
As for what I’m reading, I just finished “A Light in the Wildnerness” by Jane Kirkpatrick. Oh, wow, loved that book. It left me a tad sad, though it still had a satisfying ending. But it was one of those novels that make you think. The author did such a wonderful job of really plunging us into the world of the character, and it was a story that surprised me.
Right now I’m reading “The Help”. I’m late on that one, I know. It’s been sitting on my bookshelf for some time, but I had a lot of other wonderful novels ahead of it. :) I’m only a few chapters in, but I’m really loving it. After that, I plan to read Mercy Killer by James Pence. As you can see, I have rather eclectic tastes and tend to love almost all genres.